Sounds and Silences from a San Archive

From 17 Aug 2011 to 14 May 2012

18 August 2011-15 May 2012. This exhibition, entitled Sound and Silences from a San Archive, displays a series of artefacts, rare wax cylinder sound recordings, ethnographic texts, drawings and other memories, which are part of the Iziko Social History’s archive of /Xam and other San ethnographies. This archive, brought together by Wilhelm Bleek, Lucy Lloyd and especially Dorothea Bleek between 1856 and 1947 from their /Xam and other San teachers, has revolutionized our understanding of San life past and present.

This exhibition reveals how ordinary objects can tell extra-ordinary stories of everyday life, belief, gender, childhood, storytelling, resistance and survival.